ITALY CONDEMNS CHINA'S POLICY OF FORCED ORGAN HARVESTING

Italian Congress Shows the Double Face of Organ Transplantation

Professor
Franco Citterio, President of the Italian Society of Organ
Transplantation, during the congress held in Siena, Italy. (Konstantin
Skabrin/Epoch Times)

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ROME—The congress of the Italian Society of Organ Transplantation
(SITO) concluded in Siena, Italy, end September. Doctors and
professional workers shared with the public the reality of a sensitive
issue. From one side, Italy is one of the most advanced medical
countries in the world, from another side, there is still poor
information about the illegal organs’ market, which flourishes in some
regions of the world.
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Speakers who took turns on stage showed the same desire: give an
organ to about 9,000 patients on the Italian waiting list. “We could do
more,” said Professor Franco Citterio, SITO President, during an
interview with Epoch Times. “We see that when people are informed, the
number of donations increases.”
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Professor Citterio recalled the 20th anniversary of Nicholas Green’s
death – the 7 year old American boy killed by mistake by the Mafia in
southern Italy. His parents’ altruistic decision to donate his organs,
saving thus seven people, was widely publicized by media. The donation
figures increased dramatically in Italy from that day, which reached
2,841 transplants in 2013.
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Besides the selfless act of the Green’s family, the congress exposed a
less selfless reality: organ traffic ruled by countries in which
executed prisoners, and prisoners of conscience are used as a ‘bank’ for
selling their organs on the local or international market.
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According to SITO, there are at least 10,000 illegal transplants each
year with astonishing prices: in China – where the regime controls
hospitals and medical staff – a kidney can be worth 70,000 dollars. The
removal of organs from death row inmates is a practice that goes against
the ethical medical standards. In October 2012, the World Medical Association has
expressly ruled that “In jurisdictions where the death penalty is
practised, executed prisoners cannot be considered as organ and/or
tissue donors.”
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“The Chinese situation is known to us,”Professor Citterio said,
“[the country] has been sanctioned by the International Society of
Transplantation. The Chinese government made some statements that this
would never happen again. In fact, it seems that this is not the case,
and that it continues to be implemented.”
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In November 2013, China signed the Hangzhou resolution, which
received praise of the international medical community, declaring to end
the organ harvesting from executed prisoners. Only a few months later
though, in March 2014, Chinese officials stated that China will continue
to use organs from prisoners, and that the bodies will be accounted
into a new computerized system for organs.
“In China, donors are killed,” said Doctor Katerina Angelakopoulou, spokesperson of the Italian DAFOH
(Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting). This association aims at
protecting medical ethics, and was founded in 2007. DAFOH had a stand
at the congress.
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DAFOH is leading an international campaign against the forced organ
harvesting in China. Some doctors have decided to establish the
organization after the 2006 investigation by human rights lawyer David
Matas, and former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour. They
published a document – “Bloody Harvest”
– where they stated, that at least 41,500 forced organs have been
harvested between 2000 and 2005, from living Falun Gong practitioners, a
meditative discipline persecuted by the Chinese regime.
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“I believe the international community must strongly condemn and
exert pressure against this activity,” Franco Citterio suggested, adding
that in Italy there is an average waiting list of two years for a
kidney, in China it can be around 1 to 4 weeks.
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In March 2013, the Human Rights Committee of the Italian Senate
approved a resolution against forced organ harvesting in China. Then, a
coalition of Italian MPs was launched in about two months. “There are a
dozen of MPs who have the desire to cooperate at an international level,
so to stop this unethical practice in China,” said Doctor
Angelakopoulou.

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A Texan who loves the truth and hates the lying, cheating, and deliberate prevarication that characterizes so much of our civic discourse these days.
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